


all shades of blue

by elizaleigh



Series: all shades of blue [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Family, Family Feels, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Growing Up, Post-Season/Series 03, el and will deserve nothing but happiness, give these kids a break
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 00:13:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20787377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizaleigh/pseuds/elizaleigh
Summary: "And your heart's a thousand colors, but they're all shades of blue."After Starcourt, Will and El learn to live in the real world.





	all shades of blue

When they pull up to the new house in the U-Haul, Joyce turns to El proudly. "What do you think?" she asks. "Bit more spacious than the cabin, huh?" El nods slowly and sinks into her seat, and even when Joyce unlocks the doors for her to step out of the trunk, she can't remember the last time she felt so trapped.

Will and Jonathan pull up a few minutes later, and El watches the scenario mirror itself. Jonathan smiling widely, if tensely; Will sinking into himself as though he might melt on the spot. But then there's a flurry of boxes and bubble wrap and Joyce yells, "Come on, team!" and El wishes she had the energy to cry.

They set up the beds first. Jonathan, who's already secured a part-time job at the movie theatre and will be working odd hours, gets the single bedroom; Will and El agree to share the master. "We can get a curtain, maybe," Joyce suggests, "So you can each have your privacy." Will shrugs hopefully and looks to El for confirmation. _Privacy - get it? _She nods as well.

Will takes the wall by the door, El the wall by the window. Will's half is plastered with drawings and posters; El's with pictures of home, of Mike and Max and the Party. She gingerly places one photo of Hop on her bedside table, but when Will leaves the room she stows it away.

Moving in takes all of that day and the next, and even when the U-Haul is empty, the house doesn't feel full. Though it's old, built in the '40s, and hasn't had its AC updated since, the house feels lemon-cleanser clean and sterile. For the first week, El insists on sleeping with the window open, just so the telltale smell of evergreens and rotting trash can waft into her room.

Jonathan returns the truck to the station while Will and El register for school. Joyce pulls her aside before they leave, rubbing her arm with a comforting _sweetheart_, and El knows she won't like what's next.

"I know you want to be registered as Jane Hopper," Joyce says (El had lost the fight about being registered as 'El' long ago), "But I'm afraid that if we include Hop's name, it might unravel the story."

_The story. _Of course. There has to be a story, because El does not technically exist. Before Starcourt, the story had been simple: Jane was Hopper's goddaughter, recently orphaned. But without Hopper, _the story _fell apart. Joyce Byers didn't have a goddaughter; she didn't have siblings or cousins who would impress their child on Joyce, already struggling financially. El overheard Nancy and Jonathan talking about it one night, a few days after Starcourt, when she was still sleeping on the couch, pretending that there was still a day she would return to the cabin and Hop would be there waiting. "It's incredible that your mom would take her in," Nancy's whispers had wafted from Jonathan's bedroom. "I mean, everything El's gone through... Not to mention the financial stress..."

"You know my mom," Jonathan had replied. "After everything, El is one of her own." El searched desperately for a hint of resentment or malice, but in Jonathan's voice heard only softness. She'd bitten down on her hand and tried not to scream. 

It wasn't that El didn't love Joyce, or didn't want to be her daughter - it was just that being Joyce's daughter meant she would no longer be Hopper's. And so when Joyce sits El down and tells her that she'll be enrolled in school as Jane Byers, El gets up from the table wordlessly and doesn't acknowledge the change until they are at the school, putting down her name and receiving her schedule.

While Joyce deals with the paperwork, El and Will roam the campus. It's bigger than Hawkins High, with a full track and football field on campus. 

It's the most trapped El's felt since she left the lab two years ago.

***

The school thinks they are twins.

It hadn't occurred to either Will or El, but of course it makes sense. Siblings, the same age. Of course people think they're twins.

Still, El is tripped up on her first day when a few girls ask what it's like to have a twin brother, and squeal in disgust when she lets slip that they share a room. She stutters over Will's birthday and his favorite color, and stammers some excuse about getting to class to avoid the question.

Jonathan drives them home, dropping them before heading to his shift. Joyce is still at work, and El considers asking Will about some of the things a twin should know - her brother's favorite breakfast, how he acts when he's sick - but Will beelines straight for their room so directly that El doesn't dare interrupt his thoughts. Instead, she sits on the kitchen counter, next to the phone, and dials the only number she has memorized.

Mike isn't surprised that Will and Jane Byers are twins in Springfield.

"I mean, you guys kind of look alike," he comments. "If I didn't know, I wouldn't not believe you were twins. I mean, I would believe it."

"Mike," she interrupts.

"Yeah?"

"You're rambling."

"Sorry," he says, and El giggles. The tightness in her stomach unwinds just a bit.

"Have you made any friends?" Mike asks.

El thinks about those girls, asking if her brother was single and what he was like. "Just Will," El replies.

But she glances at their bedroom door, and even she isn't sure it's not a lie.

***

By her second week of school, El is behind.

She's perfectly capable of doing the work, she knows, even if it goes slower. She devoured books in the cabin almost as quickly as soap operas, and even in math and science she can rely on patterns and rules to keep her oriented. But the forty-minute classes trip her up; the impersonal _hellos _of her teachers who have to confirm her name ("Jenn? Oh, Jane!"); the expectation that she will know how a school works. At the end of each day, she's so drained that she can barely start on her homework, let alone finish it.

Joyce is placated by El's assertions that school is going well, and Jonathan, though a bit more skeptical, doesn't have the time to keep up with freshman classes. Will watches her from afar, passing a note when he sees her press her pencil through her notebook, but they never discuss it. They have an unspoken promise not to discuss their lives before, even if they want to.

They're assigned _The Great Gatsby _during their third week of school. Will and El bike home together as usual, and Will says, "It's good. Jonathan says so, at least." El nods tiredly, and they are quiet for the rest of the ride.

On Joyce's suggestion, they order pizza for dinner and watch _Miami Vice _reruns during. Will sets out to start a new campaign for the next time the Party visits while El cracks open her new book. After a half hour, she's only a couple pages in.

"El?" Will asks, timidly.

She looks up. They're both lying on the floor in the living room, on their stomachs, stretched out along the foot of the sofa. With a start, El notices that her head had been falling onto her book; several pages are folded, and she smooths them with a shaking hand.

"Would you want me to read to you, maybe?" Will suggests.

El stops. Hop used to read to her - _Anne of Green Gables _and _Matilda _and everything in between. She physically recoils at the thought, picturing how much better it is to be read to when she can hear the words through the rumble of Hopper's belly. She's opening her mouth when Will stops her.

"It's okay if you don't want to," Will says. "I just, I feel like we don't really talk, and I know school is really overwhelming, and - "

"Yes," El says.

And so they sit up, backs against the couch, and Will lifts the book from El's hands, shrugging his shoulder down so that El can rest her head on it, and begins: "In my younger and more vulnerable years..."

It becomes a tradition, whenever one of them is feeling overwhelmed. When they finish _The Great Gatsby_, they move onto _To Kill a Mockingbird_, and when the school assignments run out come summer, they make it their mission to read every Agatha Christie they can get at the library. Their friendship, once a half-finished chain linked by Mike in the middle, takes on a life of its own, and when a gaggle of girls asks Jane about her brother, El tells them how he looks after her, and she after him.

***

Even with Will's help, though, El has trouble.

"I talked to Mrs. Bennett," Joyce mentions at dinner one night, after a particularly harrowing incident in which El had run from a class wailing and been suspended for the week. "She said, if you're willing, she could find an older student to help tutor you."

There's nothing El can think would be less helpful, but Joyce looks so hopeful that she agrees to try a session.

Mrs. Bennett pairs El with a boy named Jacob, a junior with sandy blonde hair who towers nearly a foot above El. He's not at the top of his class, but he'd done well in his freshman classes, and he'd struggled with attention issues as well. They meet in the library, and to her surprise, Jacob is patient.

"Were you homeschooled, before?" he asks. El shrugs, which Jacob takes as confirmation. "That's cool," he says. "It must be kind of overwhelming coming to Springfield now. If you ever need a break, just let me know."

And so, every Monday after school, El lets Will bike home alone while she meets with Jacob and talks through biology, or history, or math. He doesn't laugh when she asks who Abraham Lincoln is; in fact, he seems genuinely excited to tell her about him, thriving under her gaze. Mike always calls her after these sessions, and she laughs when she hears his voice tinged with jealousy. He always apologizes - Max, he assures El, has spent many hours "enlightening" him, and while he still competes with Max over who gets to be El's protector, he does his best not to let his fears dictate their relationship - and El always laughs. "It's cute," she says. Will gags in the next room.

During the second week of February, Jacob pulls El aside after their tutoring session. "Hey, Jane," he says, "What do you say we go see a movie tonight?"

Her homework is done, and Joyce is working late, so she nods. "My brother works there," she replies. "He could maybe get us a discount." 

Jacob smiles. "I'll pick you up at six?"

"Sure." 

El bikes home to Will, who's deep in conversation with Dustin about some campaign they're planning. When Will hears the door open, he lowers the phone from his ear and tells Dustin to shout, so that they can all speak.

"Want to go to a movie tonight?" El asks Will.

"What?"

"Jacob and I are going. Want to join?"

Over the phone, Dustin groans. "Oh, no," he says. "Oh, no, El. Has Mike told you about Valentine's Day?"

El furrows her brows, and Will's eyes flit to the phone as if he might exchange a telepathic look.

"Of course not, he's probably waiting for the right time to 'sweep you off your feet.' El, Valentine's Day is, like, a celebration for boyfriends and girlfriends." Next to her, Will shrinks. Dustin continues, "Like, I sent Suzie flowers and chocolate. If Jacob wants to see a movie with you on Valentine's Day, he probably meant as a date."

"But I have Mike," El responds. "So why would it be a date with Jacob?"

"Does Jacob know about Mike?" Will asks, and she suddenly realizes that no, he doesn't. El kicks herself mentally. Everyone else in her life has known about her and Mike since seemingly the moment they met; it never occurred to her that she'd have to tell Jacob about her boyfriend.

"What do I do?" El demands, frantic. "What do I tell Mike?"

"Mike will understand, no question," Dustin says. El can see him brushing his hand all the way in Hawkins. "And if he gets all pissy and jealous, you know Max will kick his ass. Besides, everyone knows you two are googly-eyed for each other, it's not a big deal." Dustin breathes. "And for Jacob, just cancel."

"But I promised!" El insists.

"Tell him the truth," Will advises. Before El can respond, a car honks outside, and El recognizes Jacob's Jeep through the window. Will notices as well, and bumps her shoulder. "Good luck."

Outside, Jacob is wearing a button-down shirt and holding three trimmed roses. El, still in her schoolday outfit, hobbles slowly down the driveway, and flinches when Jacob reaches for her hand.

"I - I - didn't know," she says.

"Didn't know what?" Jacob replies, trying to pull her in. She leaps back, and Jacob frowns.

"That this was... The date," she says. _Words, where are words? _"I have a boyfriend."

Jacob pauses. Then he throws the flowers on the ground. "Fucking tease," he exclaims, before jumping back in his car. He speeds off, and El returns inside.

The next day, a full bouquet of roses arrives from Mike. She calls to thank him, and stumbles over her words when she explains the Jacob situation. Mike isn't upset. "You didn't know," he says, as though that's all there is to it. (_As though there's not a reason she wouldn't know; a reason that involved the government and weaponry and a life as a lab rat._) Then, "I wish I could be there with you."

"I wish I was with you, too."

The following Monday, Jacob doesn't show up to tutoring. El passes him in the hallway, but he looks pointedly ahead, and they don't speak again.

***

By March, the Byers are mostly settled in. Will's started an A/V Club with a couple of friends from his Honors Bio class, and Jonathan's earned enough respect at the movie theatre to get mostly weekend and afternoon shifts. Joyce, too, is excelling at work, and has even asked some of her friends at the diner to teach her some new recipes for her (heavily assisted by Jonathan) to make for the family. Every other day, Mike calls El at 7 o'clock sharp; on the off days, she'll chat with Max after dinner, and at least once a week, the whole Party will gather for a call. Dustin updates them on Steve and Robin (who he's convinced are dating, no matter how many times Steve tells him otherwise); Lucas (subtly) expresses his glee at Erica's new addiction to comics; Max will tease them all in return. Listening in to these calls, El feels free in a way she hasn't in months; her very body loosens and rolls with laughs. Afterwards, she might even feel strong enough to look at that picture of Hop, and maybe ask Joyce for a funny story about him from back in the day.

At school, though, El is stagnant. The story of Jane Byers playing Jacob Harwell has made its rounds throughout the school, and what little notoriety El had gained as the new girl and as a twin has faded into light disdain. Will, who watches her sit to the side of his A/V friends at lunch every day, tries to help. 

"You could join a club," he suggests, "Or a sport."

And so, on the first day of the spring season, El is on the track with thirty-some other high school girls.

To everyone's surprise (and none more so than El herself), El takes to running naturally. She starts out with sprints, which seem the easiest for a girl with no athletic background. When the gun fires and the race begins, El is taken back to the days before Jane Byers, even before Jane Hopper - to that day in 1983 where all she could do was _run, get away, run away from the bad men _\- and, with no practice at all, she comes in second place. El glides through tryouts and after her first official practice, two girls approach her.

"That was insane!" one of them exclaims. She has dark, curly hair and a freckled nose, and her similarities to Mike instantly put El at ease. "I'm Lacey, and this is Lily. We both did track in middle school, and after we'd always go to get fries. Want to come?"

El wracks her brain for any possible misunderstandings before nodding yes.

El learns that Lacey and Lily have been best friends since kindergarten, and that they mostly do track to stay in shape and so that their parents aren't jumping down their backs. "We don't really like parties, or anything like that," Lily explains, "And my mom is always bugging me about being 'more social.'"

"Besides," Lacey cuts in, "We need to do something to sustain this lifestyle!" On cue, she dunks a fry into her chocolate milkshake and slurps it with a grin.

It becomes a tradition, that on the days Will has A/V Club, El will get snacks with Lacey and Lily, and they'll meet up to bike home together. Sometimes Lacey and Lily will even follow El and Will back to the Byers' home on Friday nights, and Joyce will make them popcorn so they can watch a movie. 

They're not like any friends El has ever had before: they're less impassioned than Mike; more silly than Lucas; calmer than Dustin; girlier than Max; more outgoing than Will. And El's not yet comfortable enough around them to lay her head on their shoulders during a sad scene in a movie, like she might were she next to Max or Will. But Lacey and Lily are patient, and more than that, they are quiet themselves; they, too, know what it is like to be invisible. And while they may never know why El goes quiet in the middle of conversations, or why she's so quick to ask about routine things, they never question her. 

Halfway through the track season, one of the runners gets shin splints, and El is sent to fill in for her on the relays. Something about running for her teammates opens up a floodgate in her heart - where sprints were an echo of the past, relays are the heartbeat of her future. She thrives, pulling her team from fourth, to third, to second place, and for the last meet of the season, she's determined to make first. Lacey and Lily help her train, running sprints on weekends down Lily's street, and cheering her on from the stands.

The last meet takes place over Memorial Day weekend, the day after Jacob's supposedly legendary pool party. El, of course, is blacklisted from the invite list, and Lacey and Lily have no interest in going, so they all return to the Byers' for a movie night and some rest.

Something is different when El goes to open the door. The lights are off, the house is still - where Joyce should be (attempting to) cook and Jonathan should be calling Nancy, where Will should be doodling at the kitchen table, there is nothing. Out of instinct, El reaches her hand in front of her as she enters the room (she hopes her still-dormant powers may return in a moment of need), and when she flicks on the light - 

"_Surprise!_"

They're all there - Mike and Max and Lucas and Dustin and, behind them, Will and Joyce and Jonathan and Nancy, who must have driven the Party to Springfield. El lets out a squeal and runs into Mike's arms, squeezing his torso before leaning her chin up into a kiss, and from there it's pandemonium. "What, nothing for me?" Max demands, and nearly pulls El away from Mike's lips to wrap her in a tight hug; Lucas embraces the both of them, and then Dustin pulls the six into a big group hug. Behind her, El can hear Lacey ask, "Is this the famous Mike?" and, despite herself, El snorts.

They eat dinner and watch "Back to the Future" together, before Lacey and Lily head home. The Party all sleeps in El and Will's room - Joyce pretends not to notice that Mike slips into El's bed in the middle of the night - and in the morning, Jonathan drives them all to get waffles before El's big meet.

She doesn't get first.

Instead, she slides into second place, earning her team enough points to qualify for regionals but falling short of her personal goal. Her teammates slap her high fives and Lacey and Lily rub her back comfortingly, and El has already turned to take a swing from her water bottle when a shout interrupts her.

Above her, in the bleachers, Mike and Max are holding a giant piece of posterboard, meticulously drawn and colored, announcing "_Go El!_" Dustin is dancing next to it, Lucas is shaking his head and Will is laughing. Joyce and Jonathan and Nancy are yelling in the background.

That night - after the team meeting, the celebration, hugs from Lacey and Lily and all her teammates, a crammed drive home in Jonathan's car while he blasts "Should I Stay or Should I Go" - El pulls out her picture of Hopper. Mike is asleep next to her, Max and Lucas and Dustin are sprawled on the floor. Across the room, El thinks she sees Will move, but he knows her well enough not to say anything. 

El hugs Hop to her chest, then puts the picture back in the drawer.

***

_broken bottles shine just like stars, make a wish anyway_  
_just your smile lit a sixty-watt bulb in my house that was darkened for days_  
_ I've been thinking you probably should stay_

**Author's Note:**

> A few months ago, I wrote a piece about El's reaction to a lab experiment in school ("clean slated"), and it got me thinking about how El might learn to live in high school as a whole. Add that to me desperately needing something to tide me over until ST4, and here you go! The quote at the end and the title of this fic (and the series about El and Will post-S3) comes from Gregory Alan Isakov's beautiful "All Shades of Blue," if you're looking for a sweet (and sad) song to cry about S3 to.


End file.
